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10/25/11

Ride Home 10/25

Another brilliant night and another opportunity to not change back into bike clothes. It did't lead to any noticeable Dick Van Dyke effect, though maybe it did and that accounts for why the Acura driver only nearly missed me when he passed too closely rather than driving right into me. I don't know if it's callousness or over-confidence or just not caring, but I'm always amazed by how little margin of error some drives give themselves (and by extension, me) in the name of driving marginally faster. I guess the consequences seem more profound to the person on the bike.
Great ride down Mass and I caught up to another rider heading down the hill. She, like me, did the thing where we merged from the right-turn only lane at Waterside. It's the best of a few bad options. Though I suppose if karma was paying attention, it exacted itself later on down the road when a pickup truck stopped in front of us in the narrowed right lane and the driver turned on the flashers, leaving us stopped as traffic sped by in the left lane. Less than an ideal scenario, but these things happen.
A few thoughts on the Logan Circle Whole Foods:
1) It's quite crowded in the five o'clock hour
2) Children ought not be allowed to push the family shopping cart, especially when the Whole Foods is crowded with hungry myopic little twits.
3) There's bike parking and a Bikeshare station, but it could probably do with more.
Spotted the DC Bike Ambassador standing in the middle of the 15th street cycletrack by Rhode Island. I don't know what he was doing (holding postcards?), but he didn't reciprocate my hello. Maybe because of diplomatic immunity?
Superbikers are lame, especially when riding in the city. As is my wont, when pedestrians are in the middle of crossing the street, even after their rightful turn has ended, I don't try to ride through them, rather opting to instead allow them to finish. Apparently, this is not done in superbiker culture and you should aggressively dart through the hapless pedestrians as quickly as possible. You know what, superbiker? That's rude. And you know what else? I know the timing of the lights and there's no way that you're not getting stuck at the next red, no matter how tight your lycra is.Big Sean was right. They were repairing one of the security bollards when I rode by this afternoon. I guess it wasn't me, but routine maintenance. Maybe they won't put the tape back up?
Is interval training when you can't ride for more than a block because the lights are timed to prevent it? Roadies can feel free to clue me in.
I'm never not riding through the Capitol again. Way better than Constitution. For non-American readers, the Capitol is the home of our legislative branch, which is where bills go to become a law held up in an endless morass of extra-Constitutional procedural hurdles by a demographically skewed upper house. Living in DC is majestic.

Coming from the House side to the bike lanes, I have to choose House side or Senate side, and then shared path or road/parking on the way down. Then again road/parking vs., ahem, sidewalk from the west front to the lanes. Taking the road on the latter leg can be precarious, with all those cars diagonally parked and poised to dart out. Taking the shared path can be bad when it's clogged with pedestrian/tourist types, none of whom are paying attention and precisely half of whom appear to come from the walk-on-the-left tradition.

I ride the Capitol grounds both to- and from work. The westward ride down the House side is always a challenge since the pathway through the bollards is always clogged with staff/tourists demanding "no wake" speeds. Riding up the Hill to head home is usually pretty easy, but precarious with the aforementioned diagonal cars. I also think riding up the paved path is illegal since it's technically one-way. Despite these challenges, it's still way better than taking Independence or Constitution.

@BW My experience, so far, on the road on the Senate side has been pretty good and I haven't worried too much (or more than usual) about anyone pulling out, but I definitely understand what you mean. I think that the path might be too crowded, potentially, for my tastes.

@dcdouglas I've had some experience riding up the House side on weekends and even then, it's not nearly as nice as the few times I've taken the Senate side. And you're definitely right that both are vastly preferable to Constitution and Independence.